With the Mets tired in the NLCS, time may be running out on their magical season

NEW YORK – As Francisco Lindor led off in the bottom of the seventh inning, reality reduced Citi Field's a cappella rendition of “My Girl” to a feeble murmur.

It sounded appropriate considering how much fun you've had over the last few months and what's at stake now and what things have looked like.

The New York Mets' season is almost over.

The Mets are facing elimination in the National League Championship Series after another poor performance. They lost 10-2 to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night in a game in which they seemed completely outmatched. Again. They trail the Dodgers 3-1 in the series.

What's worse than these numbers is that the Mets look like they've run out of gas because teams have staged comebacks in the face of such deficits.

“Sean (Manaea) said it the other day,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said when asked if his rotation had literally hit a wall.

Here's what Manaea said Monday after his start when asked about his final inning: “I just hit a wall. I mean, I don't know, I just hit a wall. I'm obviously not trying to do that. I really have no excuse other than that.”

So Mendoza moved on…

“We ask a lot of these people,” he said. “And we are dealing with a good team. You have to give these guys credit. This is a deep cast. That's a good lineup. And whether these guys feel it or not, we didn’t execute and we didn’t get any length from them.”

The problem can be seen elsewhere, as there is no single reason why the Mets were outscored 30-9 in the NLCS, but the rotation is as good a starting point as any.

New York relied heavily on strong starting pitching in the final months of the regular season, but there was a catch. As the Mets' veteran rotation, which had overcome injuries and shorter workloads a year ago, provided quality relief work, the fear that a tax would apply grew. Unfortunately for the Mets, that due date popped up in mid-October.

Jose Quintana is a year older and 100 innings deeper than he will be in 2023. (Photo: Luke Hales / Getty Images)

The Mets' path to postseason victory was to disguise their shallow bullpen by trusting their starters to go deeper into games than most other teams' pitchers would in October. It didn't work out against the Dodgers, a lineup full of stars and an all-rounder at the plate.

Game 4 starter Jose Quintana, 35 years old and more than 100 innings over his total when he was a year younger, never had much of a chance. The Dodgers negated his style of working the edges, resulting in four walks, five hits and five runs in just 3 1/3 innings. When Quintana's scoresheet ended, the Mets were down 5-2.

Earlier in the week, Mendoza revealed that rest days were a key part of the calculation when lining up his rotation for the NLCS — even if his starters got extra rest.

“I think it depends on where they are physically,” Mendoza said. “These three guys (Quintana, Manaea and Luis Severino) are now in an area they’ve never been in before.”

In four games, no Mets starter has recorded an out in the sixth inning. Meanwhile, on the Dodgers' side, only Game 1 starter Jack Flaherty accomplished the feat, pitching seven innings. But that's part of the difference between the Mets and the Dodgers. Los Angeles can win in other ways, including by relying on multiple leverage arms to emerge in its bullpen.

When Quintana's stint ended, the Mets turned to backup José Buttó. Once a mainstay in the late innings, Buttó has experienced less stressful situations due to his poor performance in the playoffs. Buttó had two inherited runners score. This is his first season as a consistent player on the Major League roster. He also started the season as a starter. Out of gas?

For Game 5, the Mets will start lefty David Peterson. As The athlete As previously reported, he always seemed to be an option over Kodai Senga as long as the Mets didn't use him first out of the bullpen.

Peterson stands out as the Mets' best option, but he hasn't started a game since September 29th and has been a multi-inning reliever since then, peaking with three innings on October 5th.

“We’ve been through a lot this year,” Peterson said, “and it’s made us who we are now.”

The Mets hope to keep an unlikely season alive with Grimace and OMG. (Photo: Dustin Satloff/Getty Images)

Lindor added: “If you don’t have faith, you shouldn’t be here. You have to believe. You have to fight for what you want. You have to fight for it.”

From New York’s perspective, the season isn’t over yet. The Mets talked about adding a new chapter to a wild plot with pages about OMG and Grimace. On Friday, The Temptations will perform “My Girl” after singing the national anthem. Yes, that's another real sentence about the 2024 Mets. They hope to produce a few more unlikely works.

There was a common theme in the clubhouse with players drawing from the past. Several players pointed out that the Mets had lost their last game in Milwaukee. However, that was in the Wild Card Series. It wasn't about winning three times in a row. It's only been a few weeks, but it seems a lot longer. A lot has happened since then.

And it wasn't just the Mets' rotation that seemed to run out of energy in this series. Position players like Jose Iglesias and Francisco Alvarez didn't do much either. Brandon Nimmo is dealing with plantar fasciitis and, to his credit, is still able to compete on every ground ball.

The Mets have overcome many challenges. The players walked the path of inspiring hope while recognizing the gravity of this particular task. The Mets shouldn't be counted out completely, but their long-held concerns about how they handled previous tests may finally be catching up with them.

(Top photo of the Mets in the dugout: Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)